Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.
Let's get to it.
Chapter 6- Separated
Oliver sighs a bit as he twiddles his thumbs as they wait in the head office for the owner to arrive. Who is, as it turns out, Shang-chi's sister Xialing. They had discovered that after she had fought Shang-chi as his opponent in the ring and knocked him out. Now, the whole group is waiting in her office for her to come and see them.
"So, you haven't seen your sister since you were 14?" Oliver asks Shang-chi.
"Yeah," Shang-chi responds.
Right then, the door opens, and Xialing walks in with one of her bouncers. As she approaches her desk, Shang-chi asks her, "You run this place?"
"I own it," Xialing responds tersely.
Right then, the door opens again. Looking over, the group sees it's Katy, walking in while counting bills. Shang-chi asks her curiously, "Where'd you get that money?" Then, as it hits him, he looks at her in surprise and asks, "Did you bet against me?"
"No," Katy says, but in a tone that fools nobody. She then looks over at Xialing as she walks over and says, "Hi, Xialing. I'm Katy. You're like, such a badass. Everything you do is so, like, cool."
Xialing looks at Katy, a slight smile on her face, and she says, "I like your pants." Katy smiles and thanks her.
Xialing then looks at her brother and asks, "What do you want?"
"The Ten Rings ambushed us in San Francisco," Shang-chi informs her.
"I saw the video," Xialing says dismissively, not even looking back at him.
"They took my pendant, and they're gonna come for yours next," Shang-chi adds. Now, Xialing looks at him, while also reaching up and touching the pendant she wears around her neck.
Shang-chi looks t his sister and says emphatically, "I don't know what he wants with them, but we both know it can't be good."
Xialing leans against her desk, then asks, "Then how did you get roped together with two Avengers and a Black Widow?" She looks at Oliver and his companions as she finishes.
"Because. Yelena here got on the Ten Rings' radar in a bad way," Oliver says, gesturing to Yelena as he says her name, then continuing, "We've been trying to find the Ten Rings since, and we saw the video. We met your brother here in Macau, and we're now working together to find the Ten Rings."
Xialing is quiet for a few moments. Then, she smirks slightly and asks everyone (except her brother), "Do you know what he said to me when he left? 'I'll be back in three days'. And after three days, I went to our mother's shrine and waited. Three days turned to a week, a week turned to a month, and a month turned to six years. That's how long it took me to realize I didn't need him anymore. I built this place on my own. I didn't need you then, and I don't need you now."
"Then why did you send me the postcard?" Shang-chi asks.
Xialing looks confused. "What postcard?" she demands. Shang-chi gets up from his seat and pulls out a postcard from his pocket and steps forward to hand it to her. Xialing looks over the postcard for a moment before she looks at Shang-chi and says in confusion, "I didn't send you this."
There's a brief second where realization falls on everyone there, except Katy, who's still confused. Then, the sound of a distant explosion casts out all doubt.
Xialing looks angrily at her brother and shoves the postcard into his chest before walking away. Shang-chi looks into the ring area to see if he can see the attackers, but quickly realizes Xialing and Jon-jon are leaving through a secret door. He tries to run after them, but the door closes before he can reach it.
By now, Oliver, Natasha, and Yelena are on their feet. Yelena had drawn a pistol, while Natasha draws her two batons. Oliver looks over at the camera feeds he sees in the corner, and can see soldiers of the Ten Rings entering the facility. Oliver summons his bow, and in a flash of light, his armor takes shape around him.
"Come on! We have to go!" Oliver shoots. He draws an arrow with a weak explosive charge and fires it into the window, blowing it out. Oliver rushes to the window and leaps out onto the scaffolding surrounding the skyscraper.
Shang-chi follows Oliver out onto the scaffolding and turns back for Katy. Katy, however, is less than pleased. Katy slowly looks out of the window and down at the scaffolding, as well as the massive drop to the ground if she were to fall. "Oh, hell no! I'm not doing this!" Katy says firmly.
"Yes, you are," Yelena says as she grabs Katy and swings out of the window with her, Katy screaming the whole time. Natasha follows them out, taking the time to shoot a Ten Rings soldier just trying to enter the office.
Yelena sets Katy down on a somewhat sturdy wooden plank and points to the elevator shaft a short distance away. "Go. Get to that elevator. It's our way out."
Right then, an explosion occurs above them. Looking up at the site of the explosion, they see Ten Rings soldiers poking their heads out.
"We'll buy you some time. Go!" Shang-chi shouts.
"I'l go with her," Natasha volunteers.
"Okay. The three of us, let's take them," Oliver says before he leaps off the scaffolding. Immediately, he fires a grappling hook arrow and swings up towards the site of the explosion.
A number of Ten Rings soldiers have already started down towards the rest of the group as Oliver lands up by the hole in the side of the building. Oliver starts the fight with an arrow right into one of the men's chest, killing him and sending his body falling towards the ground below. Two more Ten Ring's soldiers try to attack Oliver with strange looking energy axes, but Oliver easily blocks them with his bow. He then kicks one of them in the knee before kicking him in the face, knocking him out. The other tries another strike with his weapon, but Oliver dodges aside and kicks him in the back, knocking him off the scaffolding and plummeting to the ground.
As Oliver engages soldiers up by the spot where they blasted out of the building, others have gotten down to the rest of the gang. Shang-chi descends a level of the scaffolding and engages several of them hand to hand while Yelena is fighting against several others a few yards away. Shang-chi is deflecting his opponents' blows easily, using his opponents weapons, bodies, and even the scaffolding as resources to fight them off. Yelena moves smoothly from enemy to enemy, dispatching them with her Widow's Bite and fierce blows.
As the other three are engaging the Ten Rings men, Natasha and Katy are trying to make it to the elevator. Katy, hearing Shang-chi yelling, turns back and sees him, having fallen down a few levels and struggling against a few soldiers. Right then, a Ten Rings soldier lands right in front of them.
Before Natasha can even do anything, Katy throws her arms up and loudly starts singing the lyrics to "Hotel California". Natasha and the soldier look at her in bewilderment for a moment before the soldier decides he's had enough and takes a swing with his weapon.
Natasha shoves Katy behind her and blocks the man's strike with her batons. She then kicks him in the knee before jabbing her Widow's Bite into his neck, knocking him out. She then deflects another blow from another soldier and launches at him with her batons.
However, as Natasha is fighting the soldier, another lands behind her. Katy tries to avoid a blow from him by swinging onto the outside of the scaffolding, but the man uses his weapon to cut the lashing holding the bamboo to the rest of the scaffolding. Immediately top heavy, the pole starts to lean outward, with Katy on it, holding on for dear life.
Natasha immediately notices what is happening. She kicks the soldier she's fighting with off the scaffolding and quickly moves over to get closer to Katy. "Katy, jump as best you can!" Natasha shouts.
Katy looks at Natasha fearfully for a moment, then shakily nods her head. Taking a deep breath, she throws herself off the bamboo towards Natasha. Natasha lunges outward, almost throwing herself off of the scaffolding, and manages to grab her hand. However, almost immediately, a Ten Rings soldier runs up with a stun baton and jabs Natasha. Natasha shouts in pain from the electric shock, and in the process, lets go of Katy.
Natasha quickly recovers and kicks the man's legs out from under him before throwing him off, then looks back over the edge at Katy falling. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, several levels down, Xialing swings out, scissors Katy around the waist with her legs, and pulls Katy back onto the scaffolding to safety. Then, a second later, Xialing starts ascending the scaffolding to assist them.
It doesn't take long for Xialing to reach them. By that point, Yelena has climbed up the scaffolding to where Oliver is still fighting with Ten Rings soldiers. Xialing pulls herself up to where Shang-chi and Natasha are and kicks a man off the scaffolding.
"You left us for dead!" Shang-chi yells at his sister in Mandarin.
"Now you know how it feels," Xialing responds in the same language.
"Fight each other later! Fight these guys now!" Natasha yells out, also in Mandarin, before she vaults off the glass and punches a man in the face.
The three quickly arrange into a fluid state of mutual awareness, consistently lending a hand to the others in indirect ways as their engage their own opponents. Natasha kills or knocks out three men with her Widow's Bite and pistols, while Shang-chi and Xialing kill or disable several others with their own unarmed blows.
Finally, only one soldier is left at their level. Shang-chi punches him in the face to disorient him, then grabs him by the front of his uniform and holds him over the edge. "What does he want with the pendant…?" he starts to ask. However, he is cut off when Xialing swings her foot down on the man and knocks him out of Shang-chi's grip, sending him falling to his death.
Shang-chi looks at his sister, disappointed she interrupted his attempted interrogation. She just looks back at him before asking, "Did America make you soft?"
The two siblings stare at each other for a moment before something hits the window behind them. The three turn and see it's some kind of knife, with a flashing red light. The three just manage to get out of the way before it blows up and blows out the window. This immediately draws the attention of Oliver and Yelena, who race to take out the few remaining enemies around them so they can help their friends and Natasha.
As they struggle to shake themselves out of the daze from the explosion, a figure appears in the opening. One of the Mandarin's lieutenants, and someone Shang-chi and Xialing know. Death Dealer.
Death Dealer moves smoothly down the scaffolding to where Xialing is. Before Xialing can do anything, he reaches out and snatchyes the pendant off her neck before ascending back the way he came.
"He has the pendant!" Xialing shouts. Shang-chi and Natasha immediately see him and move towards the blown out window.
Shang-chi quickly gets ahead of Natasha, sprinting as fast he can. Natasha, seeing the hallway that Death Dealer went down, runs down the hallway while Shang-chi runs down the adjacent hall.
As she runs, Natasha is entirely focused on Death Dealer up ahead. For that reason, she doesn't see someone off to her left. That is, until she is stoped in her tracks as she feels something wrap around her midsection. Looking down, it's bands of blue energy, along with two large rings. Then, she is tossed in the air, landing hard on her back. Looking up, her blood chills a bit as she sees the Mandarin himself walking slowly towards her, surrounded by his men.
"You have fought well, Natasha Romanoff. But now, it's time to come with me," the Mandarin says firmly.
Several soldiers walk up to restrain Natasha. Realizing she's outmatched against the Mandarin and his rings, Natasha doesn't resist. As she is brought close to the Mandarin, more guards walk into the room, bringing Katy and Xialing with them.
"Now. All that's left is my son and your husband and sister," the Mandarin says before he turns and walks down the hallway, his men following behind him.
As they get to the end of the hall, they see that Shang-chi has pinned Death Dealer and is holding a knife above him. As Shang-chi raises the knife to kill him, the Mandarin lashes out with one of his ring sets, which wrap around Shang-chi's wrist and yank him off of Death Dealer.
Death Dealer walks over to the Mandarin and hands the stolen pendant to him. The Mandarin then says, "I told my men they wouldn't be able to kill you if they tried. Glad I was right." He then pulls Shang-chi close, their foreheads touching, and whispers a few things to him before saying, "Let's go home."
Right then, Razor Fist and several men enter the room. "Sir, the Green Arrow and the other Black Widow fled. We're not entirely sure where they went," Razor Fist says.
"Not to worry. They will come to us eventually, and we will be ready for them if they do. Leave them," the Mandarin says. He then turns and leads his men out of the room, heading for the helicopters they will take away.
(Some distance away)
Oliver looks carefully through some binoculars as the Ten Rings and their captives board several helicopters. "There they go. They're boarding the choppers," he says.
"We have to do something, Oliver!" Yelena shouts at him. She had been very irritated with Oliver when he took her away from the skyscraper against her wishes. She had wanted to stay and fight, but Oliver had spotted the Mandarin and decided to retreat.
"Yelena, I love Natasha even more than you do, no offense, but even I know that just rushing in is a bad idea. Trying to face the Mandarin head on is a terrible idea. We need to come up with a different plan here. A head on assault is going to either get us killed or captured. Even with the powers I have from my bow, I don't know if I could take the Mandarin in a head on fight," Oliver says.
Yelena sits there, and is quiet for a few moments before she says, "Then what do we do now? We don't even know where his headquarters his."
"I don't know," is Oliver's only response.
And, I'll end there. Hope this was a good chapter.
Sorry it took so long for an update. I've been occupied with other stories and super busy. But, now that school is out for the summer, I can write more, so expect more frequent updates.
I hope you like that I had the group separated, and how that'll work out.
Also, quick question for you all. Would you like to see them team up with Moon Knight again for the rest of this, or would you like me to just keep it to the group we already have?
Next chapter will be up soon. Until then, please leave a review, and stay tuned!